Peak Overlap Research Articles

Accurate identification of the geographical origins of lily using near-infrared spectroscopy combined with carbon dot-tetramethoxyporphyrin nanocomposite and chemometrics

Near-infrared spectroscopy technique is a prevailing tool for quality control of foods and traditional Chinese medicines. However, it usually faced the problems of severe peak overlap, low classification accuracy and poor specificity. In this work, the potential of carbon dot-tetramethoxyporphyrin nanocomposite-based nano-effect near-infrared spectroscopy sensor combined with chemometric method was investigated for the accurate identification lily from different geographical origins. Partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) was used for differentiating geographical origins of lily based on the collected traditional and nano-effect near-infrared spectroscopy. Compared with traditional near-infrared spectroscopy, the nano-effect near-infrared spectroscopy obtains superior classification performance with 100% accuracy on the training and test set. The results showed that the proposed method based on near-infrared spectroscopy combined with nanocomposites and chemometrics could be considered as a promising tool for rapid discrimination of the authenticity of food and traditional Chinese medicine in the future.

Assessment of Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide in Human Tissues by In Vivo Phosphorus-31 Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopic Imaging at 1.5 Tesla.

As a phosphorus-containing molecule, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide is visible by phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy (31P-MRS). However, the relatively low cellular levels of its oxidised (NAD+) and reduced (NADH) forms and a significant peak overlap hinder their evaluation in live tissues. This problem is critical when using 31P-MR spectroscopic imaging, where signals are localised from limited tissue volumes. We have reported improvements in spectral resolution of 31P-MRSIof human tissues in situusing a strict optimisation of the static magnetic field (B0 shimming) and 1H-irradiation during 31P acquisition. Given this,we aimed to demonstrate if these improvements allowed us to measure the in vivo intracellular levels of NAD+ and NADH at the relatively low magnetic field of 1.5 tesla(T). Our results show the feasibility of the in vivo determination of NAD+ and NADH from relatively small volumes of human tissues studied at 1.5 T. These results are clinically relevant as the currently available systems for human use mainly operate at 1.5 or 3.0.

Anti-counterfeiting SERS security labels derived from silver nanoparticles and aryl diazonium salts.

The development of anti-counterfeiting inks based on surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) labels have attracted great interest in recent years for their use as security labels in anti-counterfeiting applications. Indeed, they are promising alternatives to luminescent inks, which suffer from several limitations including emission peak overlap, toxicity and photobleaching. Most of the reported SERS security labels developed so far rely on the use of thiolate self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) for the immobilization of Raman reporters on metallic nanoparticle surface. However, SAMs are prone to spontaneous desorption and degradation under laser irradiation, thereby compromising the ink long-term stability. To overcome this issue, we develop herein a new generation of SERS security labels based on silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) functionalized by aryl diazonium salts, carrying various substituents (-NO2, -CN, -CCH) with distinguishable Raman fingerprints. The resulting SERS tags were fully characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV-vis absorption and SERS. Then, they were incorporated into ink formulations to be printed on polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) substrates, using handwriting or inkjet printing. Proof-of-concept Raman imaging experiments confirmed the remarkable potential of diazonium salt chemistry to design Ag NPs-based SERS security labels.

Research on Infrared Spectral Quantitative Analysis of Hydrocarbon Gases Based on Adaptive Boosting Classifier and PLS

The traditional gas logging using hydrogen flame gas chromatography is gradually difficult to meet the requirements of the current complex oil and gas reservoir exploration because of its long detection cycle, many additional equipment, complex use, maintenance process and other defects. Infrared spectroscopy has obvious advantages in detection speed and convenience. But when it comes to homologues with similar molecular structure, it is difficult to quantitatively analyze the component concentration because of the serious overlap of characteristic absorption peaks. To solve this problem, this paper uses the self-developed experimental platform to carry out a large number of infrared spectral experimental studies on the single substance and six component mixtures. Based on a large number of experimental data, a method combining the AdaBoost classifier with optimization window partial least squares (PLS) modeling is proposed. Through the PLS local modeling for the spectra of different components and different concentration ranges, the boosting algorithm is used to classify the original spectral data, and then the component concentration is calculated. This method solves the problems of difficult identification and inaccurate quantitative analysis of alkane mixed gas components in traditional methods, and effectively improves the detection accuracy of infrared spectrum quantitative analysis of mixed components, which provides the core theoretical support for infrared spectroscopy to replace hydrogen flame gas chromatography which is widely used in gas logging.

Simultaneous determination of nine tyrosine kinase inhibitors in three complex biological matrices by using high-performance liquid chromatography-diode array detection combined with a second-order calibration method.

An intelligent chemometric second-order calibration method called alternating trilinear decomposition- assisted multivariate curve resolution combined with high-performance liquid chromatography-diode array detection was used for the simultaneous quantification of nine tyrosine kinase inhibitors in three complex biological systems. The method allows simultaneous quantification of the components in different biological matrices without the need for cumbersome pre-treatment steps, complex elution conditions, and complete peak separation. Even with the varying time shift, severe peak overlap, and various unknown interferences, the proposed method can extract pure chromatographic and spectroscopic information for each analyte, while providing accurate qualitative and quantitative results of nine common tyrosine kinase inhibitors in three different biological matrices. All the drugs were eluted in 7 min. The results showed that the nine drugs in each matrix showed good linearity (r>0.984) in the calibration range with a root mean square error of calibration less than 0.9μg/mL. The average spiked recoveries of the target analytes were all in the range of 83.4-110.0%, with standard deviations less than 9.0%. Finally, the classical method was used to validate the proposed method. In comparison to the traditional method, the proposed strategy is accuracy, simultaneous, and interference-free.

Cocrystals, Salts, and Salt-Solvates of olanzapine; selection of coformers and improved solubility

Pharmaceutical cocrystals and salts are extensively researched in recent years due to their ability to tune the physicochemical properties of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). A model API, olanzapine, an atypical antipsychotic drug classified as Biopharmaceutical Classification System class II, is used in this study. Cocrystals and salts of olanzapine are discovered using solvent drop grinding and ball milling. Appropriate coformers were selected based on a combination of hydrogen-bond propensity (HBP) and hydrogen-bond coordination (HBC) calculations. Eight new multicomponent phases of olanzapine, including one cocrystal hydrate with phenol; four anhydrous salts with salicylic acid, terephthalic acid, anthranilic acid, 3-hydroxybenzoic acid, and 2-aminoterephthalic acid; one salt dihydrate with terephthalic acid; and one salt solvate with 3-hydroxybenzoic acid and acetonitrile, have been discovered and characterized by PXRD and DSC. One reported cocrystal (olanzapine-resorcinol) has also been considered for the dissolution test. All these newly formed solid phases followed the “ΔpKa rule of 3”. The crystal structures of cocrystal/salts were determined by single-crystal X-ray (sc-XRD) diffraction. With the collected single-crystal data, the crystal packings were found to be primarily stabilized via strong hydrogen bonds between carboxyl, phenolic hydroxyl of co-formers/salt-formers with the piperazine and diazepine nitrogen of olanzapine, which confirmed the predicted result from the HBP and HBC calculations. HPLC coupled with UV–vis detector was used in the solubility and dissolution test instead of UV–vis spectroscopy, to avoid the peak overlap between olanzapine and co-formers/salt-formers. A threefold increase in the solubility was observed in olanzapinium 3-hydroxybenzoate and olanzapinium anthranilate, and an almost fivefold increase in solubility of olanzapinium 2-aminoterephthalate.

Abstract LB188: RNA-seq and chIP-seq profiling identifies genes and pathways dysregulated by hey1-ncoa2 fusion and shed a light on mesenchymal chondrosarcoma tumorigenesis

Abstract RNA-seq and chIP-seq profiling identifies genes and pathways dysregulated by hey1-ncoa2 fusion and shed a light on mesenchymal chondrosarcoma tumorigenesis Wenqing Qi1, Wojciech Rosikiewicz2, Zhaohong Yin1, Beisi Xu2, Shibiao Wan2, Yiping Fan2, Gang Wu1,2 and Lu Wang1 1. Department of Pathology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN 2. Center for Applied Bioinformatics, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to Lu Wang (email: lu.wang2@stjude.org) Mesenchymal chondrosarcoma is a rare and often aggressive cancer that accounts for 2-10% of all chondrosarcomas. Genetically, this tumor is characterized by the recurrent HEY1-NCOA2 fusion. However, the function of HEY1-NCOA2 fusion in mesenchymal chondrosarcoma remains to be elucidated. In this study, we transduced iPSC-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) with inducible expression HEY1, NCOA2 and HEY1-NCOA2 (HN) construct, respectively. The iPSC-MSCs expressing HEY1-NCOA2 (HN_MSCs) showed significantly accelerated growth rates and higher percentage of cells in S phase compared with cells expressing wild-type HEY1 or NCOA2 (HEY1_MSCs or NCOA2_MSCs). Intriguingly, in 3-D spheroidal growth model, we observed both accelerated cell proliferation and distinct morphological features of the HN_MSCs in contrast to the control cells. To identify direct target genes and the pathways modulated by HEY1-NCOA2, stably transduced iPSC-MSCs with and without the expression of the exogenous HN, HEY1 and NCOA2, were subjected to Chromatin Immunoprecipitation Sequencing and RNA-seq analyses. ChIP-seq data showed a largely overlap in DNA-binding peaks observed in HN_MSCs and HEY1_MSCs (~90% of HN binding peaks). In contrast, very few (0.1%) overlaps observed between HN_MSCs and NCOA2_MSCs. In addition, ~25% of HN binding peaks contain the canonical HEY1 binding E-box motif (CACGTG). Through RNA-seq analysis, HN_MSC and HEY1-MSC can be robustly separated by gene expression profiling, and GSEA pathway enrichment analysis revealed that genes encoding cell cycle related targets of E2F transcription factors and genes involved in the G2/M checkpoint as in progression through the cell division cycle are significantly enriched in genes highly expressed in HN_MSC. Differential expression analysis identified 316 genes that were significantly up-regulated by HN but down-regulated by HEY1, of which CCND1 is one of the most differentially expressed genes. When correlating with ChIP-seq analysis, 59 of the 316 genes showed DNA-binding peaks with the canonical HEY1-binding motif, including HES1 and SOX4 which were reported to be involved in chondrogenesis. We further verified the significant upregulation of CCND1, HES1 and SOX4 in HN_MSCs by Q-RT-PCR. Taken together, our study demonstrated that HN is oncogenic by significantly accelerating cell proliferation. RNA-seq and ChIP-seq profiling revealed that HEY1-NCOA2 directly binds to HEY1 target genes through HEY1-binding motif to dysregulate their expression and consequently rewire the downstream pathways. The combined RNA-seq and ChIP-seq analysis suggested that HES1, SOX4 and CCND1 are critical targets of the transcriptional dysregulation mediated by HN and may play key roles in mesenchymal chondrosarcoma tumorigenesis. Citation Format: Wenqing Qi. RNA-seq and chIP-seq profiling identifies genes and pathways dysregulated by hey1-ncoa2 fusion and shed a light on mesenchymal chondrosarcoma tumorigenesis [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2021; 2021 Apr 10-15 and May 17-21. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2021;81(13_Suppl):Abstract nr LB188.

Fractal parameters developed to evaluate the effects of laser textured surface on oil contact angle and tribological parameters

Steel specimens are textured by controlling laser peak fluence F0 and overlap ratio, OR. A 3D fractal model with the characteristic (periodic) lengths, Lx and Ly, and fractal dimensions, Dx and Dy, is introduced to solve the morphologies with the same skewness Sk and kurtosis Ku as that of the textured specimen. The product value LxLy shows its correlation with Sk and is used as a surface pattern parameter with its value proportional to asperity's plateau area. Areal mean surface roughness Sa and LxLy, superior than the conventionally used Sa, Sk, and Ku, become the controlling factors that are more efficient to interpret their role on contact angle (θ)oil formed at textured surfaces with various patterns. Effects of F0 and OR on (θ)oil are efficiently evaluated through the correlations of texturing conditions of laser power and overlap ratio with Sa and LxLy. Adhesive energy Ea((θ)oil) is introduced to establish its connection with tribological parameters.

Experimental methods in chemical engineering: High performance liquid chromatography—HPLC

AbstractHigh performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) identifies compounds in a sample and quantifies their concentration. The instrument consists of an injector that introduces a μL sample to a mobile phase that carries the analytes across a column filled with an adsorbing substance. The analytes adsorb and desorb at different rates as they flow down the column and are thereby separated. Detectors record a signal proportional to the concentration of the analyte in the mobile phase. Laboratories apply modern HPLC systems for research and development, quality control, safety, and validation. Academia and industry resort to HPLC to purify, identify, and characterize a wide variety of molecules at all stages of a process. Developing an HPLC analytical method is a long and laborious process requiring standards, calibration curves, derivatization, and multiple tests to identify an appropriate column, stationary phase, flow rate, temperature, and mobile phase. Optimal operating conditions maintain a good resolution (high signal‐to‐noise ratio and low peak overlap) while minimizing analysis time. Web of Science Core Collection indexed 8900 articles in 2019, which is relatively few compared to x‐ray and scanning electron microscopy. However, it is such an ubiquitous technique and we estimate that the number of articles that report it in the experimental section is an order of magnitude higher. The bibliometric analysis of the keywords identified four research clusters: phenolics and flavonoids, extraction and pharmacokinetics, in vitro and oxidative stress, and optimization. Here, we detail a walkthrough for the basic steps required to develop a chromatographic method.

Systemic CLIP-seq analysis and game theory approach to model microRNA mode of binding.

microRNAs (miRNAs) associate with Ago proteins to post-transcriptionally silence gene expression by targeting mRNAs. To characterize the modes of miRNA-binding, we developed a novel computational framework, called optiCLIP, which considers the reproducibility of the identified peaks among replicates based on the peak overlap. We identified 98 999 binding sites for mouse and human miRNAs, from eleven Ago2 CLIP-seq datasets. Clustering the binding preferences, we found heterogeneity of the mode of binding for different miRNAs. Finally, we set up a quantitative model, named miRgame, based on an adaptation of the game theory. We have developed a new algorithm to translate the miRgame into a score that corresponds to a miRNA degree of occupancy for each Ago2 peak. The degree of occupancy summarizes the number of miRNA-binding sites and miRNAs targeting each binding site, and binding energy of each miRNA::RNA heteroduplex in each peak. Ago peaks were stratified accordingly to the degree of occupancy. Target repression correlates with higher score of degree of occupancy and number of miRNA-binding sites within each Ago peak. We validated the biological performance of our new method on miR-155-5p. In conclusion, our data demonstrate that miRNA-binding sites within each Ago2 CLIP-seq peak synergistically interplay to enhance target repression.

Multipole electron densities and structural parameters from synchrotron powder X-ray diffraction data obtained with a MYTHEN detector system (OHGI).

Powder X-ray diffraction has some inherent advantages over traditional single-crystal X-ray diffraction in accurately determining electron densities and structural parameters due to the lower requirements for sample crystallinity, simpler corrections and measurement simultaneity. For some simple inorganic materials, it has been shown that these advantages can compensate for disadvantages such as peak overlap and error-prone background subtraction. Although it is challenging to extend powder X-ray diffraction-based electron-density studies to organic materials with significant peak overlap, previous results using a dedicated vacuum diffractometer with a large image-plate camera (AVID) demonstrated that it can be done. However, the vacuum setup with the off-line detector system was found to prohibit a widespread use. Fast microstrip detectors, which have been employed at a number of powder diffraction beamlines, have the potential to facilitate electron-density studies. Nevertheless, no electron-density studies even for materials with slight peak overlap have been performed with microstrip detectors. One of the most critical problems has been a difference in sensitivity between microstrip channels, which substantially defines the dynamic range of a detector. Recently, a robust approach to this problem has been developed and applied to a total scattering measurement system (OHGI) with 15 MYTHEN microstrip modules. In the present study, synchrotron powder X-ray diffraction data obtained with OHGI are evaulated in terms of multipole electron densities and structural parameters (atomic positions and displacement parameters). These results show that, even without a dedicated setup and perfect samples, electron-density modelling can be carried out on high-quality powder X-ray diffraction data. However, it was also found that the required prior information about the sample prohibits widespread use of the method. With the presently obtainable data quality, electron densities of molecular crystals in general are not reliably obtained from powder data, but it is an excellent, possibly superior, alternative to single-crystal measurements for small-unit-cell inorganic solids. If aspherical atomic scattering factors can be obtained from other means (multipole databases, theoretical calculations), then atomic positions (including for hydrogen) and anisotropic atomic displacement parameters (non-hydrogen atoms) of excellent accuracy can be refined from synchrotron powder X-ray diffraction data on organic crystals.

Hyperpolarized 13C Spectroscopy with Simple Slice-and-Frequency-Selective Excitation.

Hyperpolarized 13C nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy can characterize in vivo tissue metabolism, including preclinical models of cancer and inflammatory disease. Broad bandwidth radiofrequency excitation is often paired with free induction decay readout for spectral separation, but quantification of low-signal downstream metabolites using this method can be impeded by spectral peak overlap or when frequency separation of the detected peaks exceeds the excitation bandwidth. In this work, alternating frequency narrow bandwidth (250 Hz) slice-selective excitation was used for 13C spectroscopy at 7 T in a subcutaneous xenograft rat model of human pancreatic cancer (PSN1) to improve quantification while measuring the dynamics of injected hyperpolarized [1-13C]lactate and its metabolite [1-13C]pyruvate. This method does not require sophisticated pulse sequences or specialized radiofrequency and gradient pulses, but rather uses nominally spatially offset slices to produce alternating frequency excitation with simpler slice-selective radiofrequency pulses. Additionally, point-resolved spectroscopy was used to calibrate the 13C frequency from the thermal proton signal in the target region. This excitation scheme isolates the small [1-13C]pyruvate peak from the similar-magnitude tail of the much larger injected [1-13C]lactate peak, facilitates quantification of the [1-13C]pyruvate signal, simplifies data processing, and could be employed for other substrates and preclinical models.

Three efficient chemometrics assisted fluorimetric detection methods for interference-free, rapid, and simultaneous determination of ibrutinib and pralatrexate in various complicated biological fluids

In this study, a series of green, interference-free fluorimetric detection methods of the excitation-emission matrix coupled with the second-order calibration methods were proposed for the determination of ibrutinib and pralatrexate in various complicated biological fluids. The second-order advantage of the proposed method can overcome the problem of poor selectivity caused by the wide spectra of the fluorescence method. Even in the presence of uncalibrated interferences and severe peak overlap, the signal of pure substance and accurate quantitative results were still obtained. The average recoveries of the three methods were 94.5–104.9% for Alternating Trilinear Decomposition (ATLD) algorithm, 95.5–105.8% for Alternating Normalization Weighted Error (ANWE) algorithm and 94.4–105.7% for Parallel Factor Analysis (PARAFAC) algorithm, respectively. For ATLD, ANWE and PARAFAC, the relative standard deviations (RSD) were lower than 9.2%, 6.8% and 9.2%, and the RMSEPs were less than 8.1, 8.4 and 8.6 ng mL−1, respectively. In addition, the elliptic joint confidence region (EJCR) was adopted to further prove the accuracy of the three methods. The results showed that the three methods can accurately be quantified without significant difference. Good figures of merit parameters were also obtained. Among them, the limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) of ibrutinib and pralatrexate were in the range of 0.11–0.76 ng mL−1 and 0.21–1.12 ng mL−1, respectively, which were lower than the corresponding blood concentrations. These results indicate that the proposed method provides a promising, alternative and universal analysis strategy for clinical drug monitoring.

Quantifying non-centrosymmetric orthorhombic phase fraction in 10 nm ferroelectric Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 films

In this Letter, we report the percentage of the ferroelectric phase in a 10-nm-thick Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 (HZO) film deposited in a metal-insulator-metal stack by atomic layer deposition. The ferroelectric behavior was confirmed by polarization measurements and piezoresponse force microscopy. Ferroelectric behavior in this material has been attributed most likely to the formation of the polar non-centrosymmetric orthorhombic phase [Müller et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 99, 102903 (2011)], which is difficult to distinguish from the tetragonal phase in x-ray diffraction due to peak overlap. Using a model for each of the crystal phases of hafnia-zirconia, the phase percentages were estimated using a Rietveld refinement method applied to grazing incidence x-ray diffraction data and a linear combination fit analysis procedure [McBriarty et al., Phys. Status Solidi 257, 1900285 (2020)] applied to grazing incidence extended x-ray absorption fine structure data. Using these methods, it was found that the tetragonal (P42/nmc) phase is the most prevalent at 48–60% followed by the polar non-centrosymmetric orthorhombic (Pca21) phase at 35%–40% with the remainder consisting of the monoclinic (P21/c) phase. Understanding the details of the effect of the phase structure on the electrical properties of these materials is extremely important for device engineering of HZO for logic and emerging nonvolatile memory applications.

Multi-scale phase analyses of strain-induced martensite in austempered ductile iron (ADI) using neutron diffraction and transmission techniques

The content of strain-induced martensite in austempered ductile iron has been quantitatively determined using three different kinds of neutron methods: (1) high-resolution powder diffraction with subsequent standard Rietveld refinement, (2) phase quantification using pole figure measurements and (3) Bragg edge neutron transmission. The accuracy and scope of applications of these neutron diffraction and imaging techniques for phase quantification have been compared and discussed in detail. Combination of these methods has been confirmed as effective for dealing with problems like peak overlap in multi-phase materials and texture formation after plastic deformation. Further, the results highlight the potential of using single peak pole figure data for quantitative phase analysis with high accuracy.

Solving Peak Overlaps for Proximity Histogram Analysis of Complex Interfaces for Atom Probe Tomography Data.

Atom probe tomography is a powerful tool for investigating nanostructures such as interfaces and nanoparticles in material science. Advanced analysis tools are particularly useful for analyzing these nanostructures characterized very often by curved shapes. However, these tools are very limited for complex materials with non-negligible peak overlaps in their respective mass-to-charge ratio spectra. Usually, an analyst solves peak overlaps in the bulk regions, but the behavior at interfaces is rarely considered. Therefore, in this work, we demonstrate how the proximity histogram generated for a specific interface can be corrected by using the natural abundances of isotopes. This leads to overlap-solved proximity histograms with a resolution of up to 0.1 nm. This work expands on previous work that showed the advantage of a maximum-likelihood peak overlap solving. The corrected proximity histograms together with the maximum-likelihood peak overlap algorithm were implemented in a user-friendly software suite called EPOSA.

Determination of the Chemical Compositions of Fine titanium Carbide and Niobium Carbide Precipitates in Isothermally Aged Ferritic Steel by Atom Probe Tomography Analysis.

The carbon (C) ratios, namely the atomic ratios of C/(C + M), in nano-sized coherent MC precipitates (M = Ti, Nb) with the NaCl-type (B1) structure in ferritic steels, which had been isothermally aged at 580 °C, were investigated using atom probe tomography (APT). Considering the influences of the trajectory aberration, detection loss, and peak overlap, we determined the C ratios to be ~0.40 and ~0.45 for an equivalent volume diameter of 1.5–5 nm and 1–5 nm for the TiC and NbC precipitates, respectively, suggesting that there is a considerable fraction of C vacancies in both nano-sized precipitates. The apparent C ratios show significant scatter with decreasing particle size, while the apparent mean C ratios of very fine TiC particles, smaller than 1.5 nm, decreased with decreasing particle size. With the use of one of the latest APT instruments with a high detection efficiency, the scattering in the apparent C ratios was reduced because the counting statistics were improved; however, the artificial enrichment of C atoms to particular crystallographic directions of ferrite hindered the determination of the C ratio for very fine TiC particles smaller than 1.5 nm.

Influenza A Virus Inhibits RSV Infection via a Two-Wave Expression of IFIT Proteins.

Influenza viruses and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are respiratory viruses that primarily circulate worldwide during the autumn and winter seasons. Seasonal surveillance has shown that RSV infection generally precedes influenza. However, in the last four winter seasons (2016–2020) an overlap of the morbidity peaks of both viruses was observed in Israel, and was paralleled by significantly lower RSV infection rates. To investigate whether the influenza A virus inhibits RSV, human cervical carcinoma (HEp2) cells or mice were co-infected with influenza A and RSV. Influenza A inhibited RSV growth, both in vitro and in vivo. Mass spectrometry analysis of mouse lungs infected with influenza A identified a two-wave pattern of protein expression upregulation, which included members of the interferon-induced protein with the tetratricopeptide (IFITs) family. Interestingly, in the second wave, influenza A viruses were no longer detectable in mouse lungs. In addition, knockdown and overexpression of IFITs in HEp2 cells affected RSV multiplicity. In conclusion, influenza A infection inhibits RSV infectivity via upregulation of IFIT proteins in a two-wave modality. Understanding the immune system involvement in the interaction between influenza A and RSV viruses will contribute to the development of future treatment strategies against these viruses.

Potential of 2D qNMR spectroscopy for distinguishing chicken breeds based on the metabolic differences

Two-dimensional quantitative NMR spectroscopy (2D qNMR) was set up and multivariate analyses were performed on metabolites obtained from breast meat extracts of broilers and four native chicken (KNC) strains. It can accurately identify more metabolites than 1D 1H NMR via separation of peak overlap by dimensional expansion with good linearity, but has a problem of numerical quantification; Complementation of 1D and 2D qNMR is necessary. Among breeds, KNC-D had higher amounts of free amino acids, sugars, and bioactive compounds than others. Noticeable differences between KNCs and broilers were observed; KNCs contained higher amounts of inosine 5′-monophosphate, α-glucose, anserine, and lactic acid, and lower amounts of free amino acids and their derivatives. The 2D qNMR combined with multivariate analyses distinguished the breast meat of KNCs from broilers but showed similarities among KNCs. Also, 2D qNMR may provide fast metabolomics information compared to conventional analysis.

Yb/Ho Codoped Layered Perovskite Bismuth Titanate Microcrystals with Upconversion Luminescence: Fabrication, Characterization, and Application in Optical Fiber Ratiometric Thermometry.

Optical thermometry has attracted great interest owing to its noncontact and fast responsive properties in practical applications. However, some sensing errors may occur in many optical ratiometric thermometers due to the overlap of emission peaks, suggesting the necessity of developing excellent luminescent materials. Here, we report the fabrication and characterization of Bi4Ti3O12:Yb/Ho for ratiometric thermometry. Bismuth titanate was selected as the matrix due to its low phonon energy, high machinability, and satisfactory thermal stability. The temperature sensing was constructed on the intensity ratio of the two upconversion emission bands with wide separation in Bi4Ti3O12:Yb/Ho under 980 nm excitation. The wide separation endows the materials with high signal discrimination for temperature detection. The developed materials were characterized in terms of crystal structure, reflectance, and emission spectra for thermometry application. The maximum relative sensitivity was shown to be as high as 2.11% K-1. More importantly, an optical fiber thermometry was developed based on the fabricated microcrystals, which can find its potential applications in harsh environments.